Ok, here is my situation. I'm trying this, but it doesn't seem to be working. I see it on my TIVO, I select the file, and even the MPEG files fail. I've tried WMV, then the MPEG, and then a MOV. The MPEG started to go but it was playing fast and audio choppy. WMV and MOV's just fail.

My Settings are:

Quote:

[Server]
port=9032
ffmpeg=c:\pyTivo\plugins\video\ffmpeg_mp2.exe

#debug=false

# Audio bit-rate, default 192K
# Video bit-rate, default 4096K

#Beacon broadcast address(es)
#Typically use 255.255.255.255 but on some multihomed machines you may
#need to specify the subnet broadcast address(es) of your Tivo boxes
beacon=255.255.255.255

#Output Pixel Width: if you have an HDTV you might want to try 720 or 704
#Valid: 720, 704, 544, 480, 352

#Per tivo options
# section named _tivo_TSN with the tsn in all caps
[_tivo_540000NOTTACHANCE]

do you think there would be any way to force a seriesID on a program that is already in NPL? Or is the only way to transfer it with a corresponding text file via pytivo?

i hate the idea of having to transfer all my programs with TTG and then send them all back with pytivo and hope that no quality gets lost in translation. not to mention the time it would take.

I don't know of a way to change the metadata on files that are still on the Tivo. I'm not saying it can't be done, but my guess is that it would require tinkering by folks that frequent the Tivo Underground forum.

Quality should not be lost on files recorded on the Tivo and transferred back but as you pointed out, it does take time to transfer the files.

Ok, here is my situation. I'm trying this, but it doesn't seem to be working. I see it on my TIVO, I select the file, and even the MPEG files fail. I've tried WMV, then the MPEG, and then a MOV. The MPEG started to go but it was playing fast and audio choppy. WMV and MOV's just fail.

This one has been good for a number of posts: The -i %(in_file)s should be removed from the ffmpeg_prams config line. I assume you have your actual TSN in the per-tivo section heading? (Otherwise that section will have no effect.) If you don't have an active ffmpeg_prams line it defaults to a built-in one. Unfortunately in at least one version the default one also had the same error. I would recommend getting the latest version with d4219... in the download name.

Also, you have an extremely high bitrate for the format that is configured. You have not specified a width or height so it falls back to the default which is 544x480. (The '#' sign comments out a line so it might as well not be there.) The 12 Mi bitrate is 3 or 4 times too large for that format.

That bitrate would be more appropriate for encoding to 1440x720. If you comment out the bitrate it will default to 4096k which is good for the default format or you might want to try 720x480. since you have a large screen.

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Proxima:
What version of pyTivo? Go to the latest version if you haven't done so.
What kind of file are you trying to transfer? Have you tried more than one example?

Please confirm you have your actual TSN instead of "540000NOTTACHANCE" in the per tivo section. Otherwise your settings in that section do nothing.

For now, use the default width (544). If your series 2 is a 540 I think it may not accept some other widths.

Uncomment the debug line in the config file and try the transfer. Post the resulting debug.txt file here.

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Perhaps this is just the way things go but I had a question in regard to breaking things out by subdirectory.

Ok.. So, I have things working just fine. I have a V:\Movies folder defined and a V:\Kids Shows folder defined. Both show up on NPL and when I right arrow in, all the movies display. I wanted to create subfolders under the Kids Shows folder such as V:\Kids Shows\Dora and V:\Kids Shows\Disney. So, I did that and moved a few .avi files from the main V:\Kids Shows to the subfolders.

The problem is when I go into the Kids Shows folder in NPL, it shows the subfolders with a count of 0 (zero) and the movies are still listed in the main folder. When I go into the subfolders, the movies also appear there... Does something need to be modified to allow the movies to ONLY appear in the subfolders and not in both places? Is there a way to get the Tivo Folder to display the number of files that exist in the subfolder?

Many thx for all the help/advice... just browsing through many of the posts got me up and running with this. One item to possibly chnage, the default location for the ffmpg program is setup for UNIX.... I kept getting errors and it took me around 4 hours to figure out I needed to comment out that line and change it to the WINDOWS line.. Perhaps it should default to WINDOWS or have a mention of that in the configuration page..?

pesto126:
You didn't say whether you have auto_subshares set in your config file (?). This, if used, is set in each share section. Anyway try it with and without this and see if one way pleases you more. Also, what version of pyTiVo? Recommend using the latest available, the one with "d4219..." in the download file name.

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Thx.. It was set to True to so I'll set to False and give it a go... do I need to stop and restart the service in order for the new config to be used... or does it check it as it needs to so just make the edits and save the file and that's it? Thx.

Thx.. It was set to True to so I'll set to False and give it a go... do I need to stop and restart the service in order for the new config to be used... or does it check it as it needs to so just make the edits and save the file and that's it? Thx.

Bummer.. that changes things but not in the way I was looking for. When that is set to TRUE, then you get all the subdirs listed in the NPL. What I was looking for was a single directory in the NPL (ie: Kids Shows) but when I go in there, you would get many other subdirs (Disney, Dora, Diego) and you could just arrow into each to see the movies. The main Kids Shows would just list the subdirs and NO MOVIES...

I'm sure I'm doing something wrong because if you can have subdirectories under the main folder and they appear correctly on the Tivo, it seems strange that the files from the subdirectory are also appearing in the main directory and that the directory file count is wrong on the main directory screen... once you go into the subdirectory, the file list does display correctly.

Turns out that my pyTivo.conf file was a mess. I made several changes and pyTivo is running as expected now.

I could use some system implementation suggestions given your experiences.

There are two performance bottlenecks that I have come across in my configuration. A) Tivo network bandwidth. B) My Server ffmpeg transcode rate.

Regarding A)Tivo network bandwidth; my S2's network bandwidth is sufficient to playback 544x480 video from the server in real-time with virtually no latency from program selection to playback on the Tivo and the video looks beautiful, so this is only really an issue on my S3 where I want no latency HD video playback. If my goal is to achieve higher quality video transfer with no latency from program selection to playback on the HD Tivo, it would seem that a higher video compression option taking advantage of the S3's ability to decode MPEG4 and maybe even h.264 may be the solution. 1) Is there a way to do this with ffmpeg and pyTivo directly assuming I have sufficient processing to transcode in real-time, or 2) pre-process the HD content to a higher compression format to be streamed by pyTivo to the S3 for decode?

Regarding B)Server Transcode Rate; 1) are there any hardware acceleration transcode options for ffmpeg, or 2) the ability to use an alternate CLI Transcoder that does have HW transcode acceleration with pyTivo integration?

Background: I read about ATI AVIVO MP4 and h.264 ENCODE hardware acceleration on X1300+ video cards, but have not actually tried this since my server has an nvidia 7600GT card right now. The nvidia cards only support DECODE acceleration right now as far as I can tell.

Also what kind of transcode performance improvements do people see running -Threads 2 on dual core processors? Anyone with a quad core, is -Threads 4 supported by ffmpeg?

I may build a new server if I can get everything running as I woud like. Quad-core with + ATI encode acceration seems like Nirvana???

Hello, I did try searching for this first, but have come up empty. I just setup pyTivo to transfer to my TivoHD. I am successfully able to connect to pyTivo and transfer files to the Tivo which is fantastic.

When the videos are transferred to the Tivo, they are stored in a group called “movies”. Unfortunately each show seems to drop into a separate group with the same name. So at the moment I have 3 separate “movies” groups for each of the shows I’ve transferred.

If my goal is to achieve higher quality video transfer with no latency from program selection to playback on the HD Tivo, it would seem that a higher video compression option taking advantage of the S3's ability to decode MPEG4 and maybe even h.264 may be the solution.

At present, the S3's ability to decode MPEG4 is purely theoretical. TTBOMK, no one has made this work yet. I don't think Tivo, Inc. has enabled software support for the MPEG4 hardware they've built in.

Hello, I did try searching for this first, but have come up empty. I just setup pyTivo to transfer to my TivoHD. I am successfully able to connect to pyTivo and transfer files to the Tivo which is fantastic.

When the videos are transferred to the Tivo, they are stored in a group called “movies”. Unfortunately each show seems to drop into a separate group with the same name. So at the moment I have 3 separate “movies” groups for each of the shows I’ve transferred.

Using version d4219..., for files that don't have metadata text files paired with them, the name displayed on the NPL is the subfolder containing the file, which is nondescript and confusing. All you have to do to get the actual video file name to display is replace line 105 in video.py with:

Code:

metadata['seriesTitle'] = metadata['title']

This will not change the NPL display for files that have metadata text files paired with them.

So, I get all the subdirs and movies from those subdirs in the main Dir.. I only want to see the subdirs and not all the content in the main dir. Also, the file count next to the subdir is always 0 even though I have movies in there. Thx.

Quote:

Originally Posted by pesto126

Bummer.. that changes things but not
in the way I was looking for. When that is set to TRUE, then you get all the subdirs listed in the NPL. What I was looking for was a single directory in the NPL (ie: Kids Shows) but when I go in there, you would get many other subdirs (Disney, Dora, Diego) and you could just arrow into each to see the movies. The main Kids Shows would just list the subdirs and NO MOVIES...

I'm sure I'm doing something wrong because if you can have subdirectories under the main folder and they appear correctly on the Tivo, it seems strange that the files from the subdirectory are also appearing in the main directory and that the directory file count is wrong on the main directory screen... once you go into the subdirectory, the file list does display correctly.

Subfolders are busted. There has been plenty of discussion on this thread about it. Bottom line, it's busted on the TiVo side of things, and there isn't anything pyTivo can do to fix it at the moment.

The best option available right now is specify a top-level folder, and set "auto_subshares=true". This will share all of the folders that are ONE level beneath the main share. You can not navigate any deeper in the directory tree.

For the given example below, you could do this with a small configuration change :

Code:

[Movies]
type=video
path=c:\Movies
auto_subshares=true

This would present the following in your NPL :

Movies-Disney (folder contains LionKing.avi)
Movies-Dora (folder contains IceCream.avi)
Movies (any FILES that are in c:\Movies will be seen here)

Quote:

Originally Posted by pesto126

Any help or ideas for this question? Trying to group subdirs under a main dir and just want to see the subdirs under the main on the NPL.. so:

So, I get all the subdirs and movies from those subdirs in the main Dir.. I only want to see the subdirs and not all the content in the main dir. Also, the file count next to the subdir is always 0 even though I have movies in there. Thx.

cannot edit the pytivo.conf.dist file how do u edit it it says windows cannot edit it

First of all, you don't. pyTivo.conf.dist is just an example file. You should be working on pyTivo.conf. You can copy or rename pyTivo.conf.dist to that, although I'd recommend starting fresh.

Secondly, it's just a text file. You edit it like any text file. Just don't save it with a ".txt" extension, or pyTivo won't find it. Or you can use pyTivoConfigurator.py, but that doesn't give you full control.

Proxima:
Did you look in c:\pyTivo for the debug.txt file? Don't see how it could not be there.
I looks like you were sending a mpeg2 that was just being transferred, not transcoded, because pyTivo thought it was TiVo-compatible. And it looks like the TiVo dumped the network socket. Did some of the file transfer or did it stop immediately?

What model number is your TiVo (does it start with 240, 540, 649 or ?).

Put "Easter at Franks.mpg" into the ffmpeg folder, start a command window logged to that folder, and enter

ffmpeg_mp2 -i "Easter at Franks.mpg"

Post a copy of the output that appears. Parsing this output is how pyTiVo gets info. If for some reason the correct duration isn't being detected by ffmpeg, that might explain your problems.

Do you have Desktop? If so are you able to transfer files to the TiVo using it?

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Just wanted to give a 'shout-out' to all who have worked on this project. The new metagenerator is awesome. I do have a question about grouping. I have two shows both with the same series ID but when I transfer them over to the Tivo they don't group in a folder? I thought they should. Another one (sorry for being naive) what is the best way to find a "line" when editing a file in pyTivo, such as line 141---I'm thinking notepad is not the way to go? thanks.

Just wanted to give a 'shout-out' to all who have worked on this project. The new metagenerator is awesome. I do have a question about grouping. I have two shows both with the same series ID but when I transfer them over to the Tivo they don't group in a folder? I thought they should. Another one (sorry for being naive) what is the best way to find a "line" when editing a file in pyTivo, such as line 141---I'm thinking notepad is not the way to go? thanks.

At home, I use Notepad++ as a text editor. It will display what line number you're on, or you can go directly to a line number.

........... what is the best way to find a "line" when editing a file in pyTivo, such as line 141---I'm thinking notepad is not the way to go? thanks.

Notepad will find a line number (with ctrl-G) IF you don't have word wrap turned on.
BUT notepad isn't good for editing pyTivo source files because they have Linux style line endings which Notepad doesn't handle correctly.

Wordpad handles the pyTivo files OK BUT it doesn't have a line number finding feature that I can see.

I'm trying a free "notepad-replacement" text editor called *** Metapad *** . It finds line numbers with Ctrl-G and works whether word-wrap is on or not, and handles the Linux line endings.

Metapad supposedly can be installed so it completely replaces Notepad but I am not recommending that. You can also just unzip the contents of the distribution file into any folder (e.g. c:\program files\metapad\). Then you can point a desktop shortcut to metapad.exe and/or right click on any text file and select Open With then browse to metapad.exe. After doing that once, the next time you right click on a text file and select open with, MetaPad will be offered as a menu selection. (You can also make it the default text editor if you wish, so text files will open in metaPad just by double-clicking.)

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....... I do have a question about grouping. I have two shows both with the same series ID but when I transfer them over to the Tivo they don't group in a folder? ........

First, no insult intended but you do have grouping turned on in your NPL, correct? This toggles with the "2" numeric key on the peanut when you are viewing NPL.

Beyond that, my impression is that we don't fully understand the exact conditions that must be met for grouping. We pretty well know that identical seriesID is necessary but it's not clear that it's sufficient. (??)

If an OP believes they know the rules, please post!

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First, no insult intended but you do have grouping turned on in your NPL, correct? This toggles with the "2" numeric key on the peanut when you are viewing NPL.

Beyond that, my impression is that we don't fully understand the exact conditions that must be met for grouping. We pretty well know that identical seriesID is necessary but it's not clear that it's sufficient. (??)

If an OP believes they know the rules, please post!

No insult taken. But yes, I do have grouping enabled as all my other shows that were recorded with the tivo are in their appropriate folders. Maybe it's just that particular show. dlfl, you don't know the best way to edit pyTivo by line do you? thanks.